MICHAEL KRYZANEK: Where hope is at a premium

Saturday

Aug 16, 2014 at 12:01 AM

I stayed for a few nights in Erbil, the center of commerce in this oil-rich autonomous region of Iraq and the target of the Islamist terrorists more commonly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

By Michael Kryzanek

In what can only be termed a sad twist of fate, I happened to have traveled to Kurdistan (northern Iraq) and been to many of the places that are filling the news these days.

I stayed for a few nights in Erbil, the center of commerce in this oil-rich autonomous region of Iraq and the target of the Islamist terrorists more commonly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). I visited the heavily fortified United States Consulate and talked with Foreign Service personnel who are defined by the State Department as performing hardship duty. And I journeyed to the area where the Yazidi people live, once integrated harmoniously into the Kurdish region but now the target of beheadings because they are not Muslims.

When I was in Kurdistan, the people I met were confident that they would eventually gain independence and use their oil and natural gas resources to build a strong and prosperous state. There was little respect for the Iraqi government in Baghdad as the administration of then Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki was seen as corrupt, incompetent and bent on advancing the interests of his Shiite sect at the expense of the Sunnis and the Kurds.

Kurdistan, particularly the area around Erbil and Duhok in the far north of Kurdistan, could only be described as what the Wild West here in the United States must have looked like during the days of the gold rush, silver mining and oil exploration. Everywhere there was hustle and bustle, endless cranes building huge skyscrapers, roads appearing out of dusty paths and people selling goods and making money.

There was also great pride in a democratic process of governance, a tolerant society and the return of thousands of Kurds from abroad to a new homeland with much promise. The United States government saw Kurdistan as a model for what Iraq could become with proper leadership. Added to this confidence was the bravery and professionalism of the Kurdistan military force, commonly called the peshmerga. The peshmerga are viewed as one of the best fighting units in the world capable of protecting the borders from jealous invaders.

The dreams of the Kurdish people are no longer filled with confidence about the future. Kurdistan is now right in the middle of the advancing ISIS terrorists. Flush with weapons ( US weapons) left behind by disloyal Iraqi soldiers, ISIS has swept across huge swaths of land and set its sights on Erbil and the rest of Kurdish territory, in large part because that is where the oil and natural gas fields are. Along the way, ISIS has brutally killed those who stand in their way, are Christian or in the case of the Yazidis are from a mixed religious tradition.

Washington policy makers didn’t see the ISIS threat coming and the peshmerga were unable to acquire heavy weapons because they were technically still part of Iraq. The result has been a direct threat to one of the few truly pro-United States regions in the Middle East. The Kurds benefited from the United States invasion to remove Saddam Hussein as it provided them with a safe haven to begin building a future nation. Now the Kurds are relying on United States fighter jets and drones to halt the onrushing ISIS terrorist army so that they can defend their land and their people.

With President Obama’s pledge to fight the ISIS army from the air and supplying the Peshmerga with heavy weapons Kurdistan has a real chance to hold the line against these Islamist fanatics.

But a once-confident region with great economic and social promise has become part of the brutal killing that is now commonplace in the Middle East. Just a few years ago the fighting in the Middle East was confined to regular battles between Israel and the Palestinians. Now the killing has spread to Libya, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Kurdistan with hundreds of thousands dead and millions left homeless.

Sadly, hope is at a premium in this region of the world and places like Kurdistan now face the reality of living next to countries where stability is meaningless.

Michael Kryzanek is executive director of the Minnock Center for International Engagement at Bridgewater State University. He can be reached on Twitter @MikeKryzanek